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Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Finding Chico, California's real haunted locals.

CHICO, CA. -- When you are new to town, among the first things you hope to find are the hangouts, the really good haunts. But according to local legend, in Chico some of the best haunts are already taken ... by real spooks.

While the town is hardly a place that could be categorized as spooky, it is hard to point in any direction without finding some place with an allegedly ghostly resident.

Strange experiences have been reported on the Chico State University campus. Students, faculty, staff and administrators have little contact with the campus' non-corporeal residents. However, the custodians who walk and scrub the empty halls of the campus buildings long after the last student has fled tell tales of things that literally go "bump in the night."

While blood-curdling screams in the darkness and the rattling of chains aren't part of these collegiate spooks routine, they can still be disconcerting.

One custodian who asked that his name not be used was working in Butte Hall one evening.
He was taking a break, sitting on a padded bench in the ground-floor lobby, when he had a sudden sense he was not alone.
He turned and saw a woman sitting at the opposite end of the bench he was on. The custodian gasped when he saw her.

She responded to his gaze and gasp by fading out of sight.
She never spoke a word or made a gesture.
Another custodian reported a meeting with a spirit of the night who was less visual but a whole lot more demonstrative.

Trinity Hall, the building with the bell tower and one of the oldest structures on campus, has gone through various mutations in its history. The second floor, which overlooks what is now an art gallery but once served as the campus library, is devoted to offices.
The custodian strolled onto the office gallery when he was working one night.

He recalled the rest of the building was a comfortable temperature, but he was startled by the sudden chill in the gallery.
Reportedly a series of carefully unlocked doors had locked themselves again without apparent human help.
Just north of campus, the home of Chico's founder Gen. John Bidwell allegedly houses more than historic relics.

A local couple who claimed to be psychic researchers heard rumors of disembodied voices and other strange goings-on in the building that is now a state historic park. After visiting the mansion in daylight and "sensing" that something out of the ordinary was going on, the pair made a formal request to state park officials for a "special use" permit.
The couple wanted to spend the night in the mansion with recording equipment in the hopes of catching something bumping.

However, the state turned them down in a letter that said if there were ghosts in the mansion they certainly qualified as an endangered species and should not be disturbed.

Local legend also claims a "woman in white" has been sighted on West Sacramento Avenue. Dressed in turn-of-the-century — the last one — garb, the apparition reportedly wanders the night with no apparent goal.

At least two ghosts have reportedly visited the Senator Theatre on Main Street, near East Fifth Street.
The venerable old theater reportedly has housed the specter of a little Indian boy, dressed in 1890s clothing.

A former manager of the theater claimed to see the boy on a regular basis and other theater staff said they sometimes saw a locked door jump as if some unseen person tried to push it open.
The couple with the interest in the paranormal said they once were involved in the redirecting of the spirit of a young man who had died in one of the apartments in the theater building.
Allegedly the young man had died in his room and was wandering around the theater because he didn't realize he was dead.
These events all took place before the theater was renovated into its current configuration and no apparitions have been reported since.

1 comment:

I actually got CHILLS as I read this story of the SENETOR THEATER. I was raised in Chico and spent many a Saturday at the Senator theater with my brother Darrin at matinees, as well as many Friday night movies with friends. My experiences of a ghost or a spirit that I would always feel and rarely but sometimes seen that of an INDIAN BOY on the second floor, the balcony area, especially in the bathroom was so strong that I had to stop using the bathroom on the second floor. or would make my friends go with me to the bathroom. When I would ex[plain to them why I needed them to go, they too would have weird feelings of somebody watching us or flollowing us around the balcony area. As a matter of fact a few of my friends actually ran out of the bathroom in some sort of fear. I also had friends that would never go back up to the balcony just because of a 'FEELING' they had while up there. In my later high school years I knew a friend who lived in the Senator Theater apartments which was in the same building as the movie theater with the entrance on the side of the building. Here I experienced some very bizarre feelings. None of which were so scary that they caused me never to returned. In fact, I felt DRAWN to return there as if the spirit of ghost was calling me. He was a young man who was just wanting a friend. Then when I talked to my friend who lived there he said that he lived in the apartment that a young man died in years before and that he to felt some sort of spirit ALL THE TIme but was never threatened or feared to be there. oin fact he too said he felt as if the spirit was just wanting a friend. THAT WAS WEIRD . Everytime I returuned to visit my friend we always heard weird banging noises and somebody walking around in the lobby causing the floor to creak when we would go look out his door there was nnpbody there but as earie cold would brush past us both and freak us both out.We even had a spirit party one night in honor of our new friend and everybody there had some sort of feeling. A couple of people left in fear. But we didn;t we had a blast. so did our friend